Oliver Jarvis, James Walker team up for Daytona 24 Hours
British sportscar stars Oliver Jarvis and James Walker are teaming up in an Audi R8 for this month's Daytona 24 Hours
Factory Audi driver Jarvis and Walker, a race winner in LMP2 in last year's World Endurance Championship, will join forces in one of the German manufacturer's GT Daytona class contenders entered by the Fall-Line Motorsports squad for the United SportsCar Championship opener on January 25/26.
The British duo will share the R8 LMS together with experienced US sportscar pairing of Charles Putnam and Charles Espenlaub, who will contest the full season in the car.
Jarvis, who won the Grand-Am GT class at Daytona last year with Alex Job Racing, said: "It looks like Fall-Line is a strong team and I have good team-mates.
"Audi wasn't expecting much last year, but ended up winning the race. Now everyone expects them to win the race, but it is probably going to be even tougher with 10 or so strong cars that can all do the job.
"It will be good to share a car with James, although my overriding memory about him is the both of us sitting in the gravel at Turn 1 at Donington Park after tangling while we were battling for the lead. I can't remember if it happened in Formula Ford or Formula 3."
Walker, who was a race winner in the GTE Pro class of the European Le Mans Series (formerly the LMS) in 2011 and '12, explained that the deal to drive one of five Audis on the entry for Daytona came out of the blue.
"I actually found out about it on Christmas Day, but it is good to begin the season in a strong car," he said.
"It's great to be partnering Olly at Daytona: with his Audi experience he's the perfect team-mate and I'm sure I'll be able to learn a lot about this year's Audi R8 LMS from him."
Jarvis and Walker will both take part in the official, three-day pre-Daytona test, which starts on Friday.
Illinois-based Fall-Line graduated to the GT ranks of Grand-Am, which has merged with the American Le Mans Series to create the USC for 2014, at mid-season last year from the feeder Continental Tire Challenge series.
Jarvis's full programme with Audi for 2014 has yet to be announced, but it looks certain that he will again be part of its LMP1 roster for the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Spa WEC rounds.
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